


Far From Here

by SilverSinger



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Biotic Shepard, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Earth-Born Shepard, M/M, Origin Story, Original Character(s), Paragon Commander Shepard, Unbeta'd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-01-12 20:32:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1199218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverSinger/pseuds/SilverSinger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commander Erin Shepard is a true hero, something that the Galaxy looks up to with either unbridled awe or hatred. The truth about him has been lost to stories and legends but only Shepard remembers the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all, this is my first story I've ever posted on this site so please bear with me. This is also unbeta'd so be warned.

Even I have forgotten my name and no it is not what you think. Despite being clinically dead for two years I am not suffering from amnesia nor do I have schizophrenia. Well, slightly, but I will get into that later. I am sure, that _you_ know my name? Haven’t you seen the Vids on the Extranet? The Savior of the Citadel and first human SPECTRE, Commander Erin Shepard. Erin Shepard, it’s not even my real name, it is a memorial to a dead man. A way for me to preserve his memory and do right by it, as he tried to do right by me.

What’s my real name? I don’t even remember. The stories you read and hear on the Extranet about my history are true, most of them. Yes, I was Earthborn, and an orphan. While the people who ran the place meant well it was easy for a child to be left to their own devices for hours at a time. Especially in the poorest area where no adult in their right mind would risk going to adopt a kid from. I was seven when I was caught by the police for trespassing, otherwise known as finding a warm place to sleep on the street. They asked me my name and if I was lost. I told them I was Mitch and I came from The Hyland House foster home. They believed me and took me back to the orphanage with a warning. There were 30 other kids in the home so when they brought me back the owner barely batted an eyelid, she had other things to deal with than a runaway seven year-old.

But I was never one to listen so it was not long before I ran off again. So, naturally, every time I was caught I was something different. Sam, Ethan, Nate, Miles, Felix, Alex, Johnny, Tai. It was painfully easy to lie, probably because the police did not really care to investigate deeper. I had nothing to hold me to Hyland House, nothing that was truly mine except for a tattered picture of a woman with auburn hair, and the 4th generation hand-me-downs on my back. I can’t even recall the caregivers calling me by name when I was there. Now I am sure I had a birth certificate or some form of file with my name on it but when I was eight Hyland House burned down and any chance I had was gone. While the other children were rounded up to be taken to other homes, I ran away and began living on the streets of San Francisco on my own. Most would praise me for rising out of such a crisis, some would point out that it’s exactly why I should be locked up in the furthest of deep space, and even some would look at me with pity. Fuck them, I do not need their pity.

Don’t make that face, it happens a lot when kids are someone else’s problem and of course the kids think they know better than the grown-ups on how to take care of themselves particularly when they’ve been taking care of themselves for years. Smart-ass kids like me you know, they have a habit of either surviving or becoming like the filth around them…and look where I am now.


	2. Life at Hyland House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The nameless boy tried to protect what little he had, and failed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to post two chapters a day, if I can. Once again this is unbeta'd.

              He was small, for his age, they told him. The hand-me-downs made him look even smaller and younger and that made him a target for the ruthless older kids. The grown-ups did nothing to curb the bullying, as long as the bigger kids were cunning and didn’t leave any visible marks they could get away with anything. Not with him though, despite his small size he fought with the ferocity of a trapped possum, all sharp, knobby, flailing limbs and sharp little teeth. It was how he lost his baby teeth early on leaving cuts and bite marks on his tormenters, to give them something to think about before they come to beat on him again.

             On a good day, when the older kids weren’t up for much of a fight, they’d smack him around a little before moving on to less vigorous prey. Bad days were spent hiding, licking wounds, and running until he could not run any more. He hated those days, when his stomach would rumble and what meager food he received could be stolen at any minute and would inevitably be. The other children wouldn’t share nor would they play with him, in a way they were scared of him like he was a bully too. It didn’t matter to him, he was fine alone. He had seen so-called ‘friends’ turn on each other when given the chance to escape a beating at least alone he didn’t have to worry about that.

            He had little to nothing, so he allowed the bullies to take what they wanted but not without a fight…there were only two things he held dear to him, that he made sure to hide in an old cookie tin buried in a crawlspace in a narrow alley. One was a slightly wrinkled picture of a young smiling woman with Japanese features, her bobbed auburn hair neat and trim. The other was a well-worn thick comic book, the edges now velvety soft with age about a kid named Conan who solved mysteries. When he was sure that no one had followed him, he would go to the alley and shimmy between the buildings to the crawlspace to be alone with his treasures.

            He had gotten careless one day and they had caught him. While he was able to save the picture the book was at his tormenter’s mercy. The older boy was Quinton, he was fifteen and had a mean streak that even he would avoid. Quinton was cruel too, he had seen him beat another kid so bad his face had swollen up and had been black and purple for days. Quinton’s two cronies held him down as the fifteen year-old ripped the pages to shreds. He felt a knot well up in his chest and his eyes burned as hot tears wetted his cheeks. He sobbed, the knot in his chest growing into something painful, unbearable a pressure he could not describe. With pieces of his beloved book falling down like snow he reach deep inside and pushed.

           Quinton flew back and landed flat on his back four feet away, his cronies flew up and landed hard on the ground on either side of Him, winded. He stood the knot in his chest gone now, replaced with the familiar feeling of sorrow. He stared down at the pieces for a moment longer and when Quinton groaned in pain fled down the block, he would cry later far from prying eyes, were he would be safe until the morning.


	3. Parents

           They did not exist, he knew they did not despite everyone even the jaded older kids believed that they would someday come back. ‘They’ being their parents. As he curled up under the stoop of an abandoned apartment under an old tatty blanket he had found, he hoped, a small impossible hope, that his mother and father would come and find him soon. When he looked at the picture of the woman he could see his face in hers, same blue eyes and nose. His hair was darker than hers, but maybe that was his father…he didn’t have a picture of him to go by. He didn’t even know who the woman in the picture was, there was no name written anywhere on it. She could have been anyone, more a stranger than his mother.

            But…

            He liked to believe that she was. He wanted to believe that this woman who looked so kind, so beautiful, was his mother. That she didn’t abandon him, that maybe her untimely death made her leave him. Then there was the small, ugly part of himself that whispers ‘Maybe she just didn’t want you. Maybe she’s never coming back’. He doesn’t want to believe that but he does sometimes, when he is lonely and heartsick. The memory of Quinton destroying his book is still fresh in his mind and fresh tears came hot and fast. He looked at the picture and wondered why was she smiling?

            He wondered if she was looking at something funny or she was looking at someone she loved. The picture was well wrinkled from being stuffed in his pocket and clutched in his fingers as he cried. Carefully, he smoothed the picture out and slipped it into his pocket. He bundled himself up in the blanket, it was summer and while the city was warm even at night a chill came to the shadows under the concrete stoop. There was a homeless man who would sleep under the stoop but he had taken to living in the park so it was free for him to sleep there. He thought himself lucky, most of the grown-ups were either drunk and mean or smelly and weird. He didn’t want to have to sleep on the balcony of an apartment, that was how the police found him for the eight time. He wasn’t scared by them, he had given his name as Dean and they had sent him back to the home. He felt rather clever that he could trick the police so quickly. The other kids would have frozen up or messed up in their lie but not him.

            The morning came with the loud wail of sirens that woke him up as well as the smell of smoke. Cautiously, he peered around and saw a large cloud of billowing smoke coming from the orphanage. What’s going on, he wondered bolting from his hole and taking the back way to the Hyland House and gaped. Large bright orange gouts of fire consumed the building even as the firefighters tried to extinguish the blaze. He froze, he couldn’t see any of the other kids or the grown-ups through the smoke, this was his chance. As quietly as he could, he snuck away from the fire trucks and ran away for good. What did he need the grown-ups for? They were all stupid, so were the kids. If there was anything he learned in his ten years of life was that the only one he could truly depend on was himself.


	4. Racine

It wasn't that it was wrong, it was just that he was so hungry. It had been two days since he had eaten, he could not get a job at ten so what was there to do but steal for his supper. He watched carefully as people moved up and down the street waiting for his chance. There was a man talking on his head piece, his hands waiving and gesticulating with no regard to the other people on the side walk. He gathered the energy into his chest and pushed out, the tiny bulb of energy was able to knock the man’s feet out from under him and that’s when he swooped in.

“Are you okay, sir?” he asked in his most concerned and worried voice. He went to help him up as he did his hand slipped into his pocket and palmed his credit chit. The man waived him off and walked on down the street. There was at least two hundred credits on the card, he’d only take fifty of them, just enough for two months of food. He smiled but his smile faded…he didn’t really like stealing but he had to eat somehow. And eat he did, the money lasted him a good two and a half months before it ran out and he lost the squatting rights to his flat. He picked out his target like before and instead tried to bump into him and steal his wallet, he used his powers to float the wallet into his hand and bolted into an alley but before he could really get away a hand landed hard on his shoulder and held it tightly.

“That was some pretty fancy work there, squirt.” a sly voice drawled making him freeze and blanch. He knew that voice, everyone knew that voice. It was Racine, he was a member of the Tenth Street Reds. All of the children on the streets knew about Racine, he was a disgusting man who loved getting “favors” from young girls, boys, in return he buys them food takes “care” of them only to throw them away once something new catches his eye. Racine was a blight but the Reds never did anything about it because he was careful, it was only the kids who were too young to work for the gangs and it wasn’t like any police officer here would believe the word of a street kid over the credits that Racine wired them. He felt himself tremble and struck out with a wiry fist and elbow at guy height but Racine’s goons were there and they easily slammed him to the ground a flash of pain blooming in his nose. Racine sauntered up and grabbed his wallet back with a sneer. “You stupid fuckin’ kid. Thought you could steal from me, huh?” Racine said then stared down at him a look in his eyes that made him struggle uselessly in the iron grip of the two men. “You know, since you wanted the money so bad…I’ll give you a job.”

“No!” he yelled as his ratty pants were pulled down to his ankles the fear welling in him to a painful degree as he thrashed like a cornered animal. He whimpered when a hand pressed his aching face to the dirt and felt something hot and big rub against his ass. “No!”

“S’all you fuckin’ street rats are good for…” Racine whispered his breath hot against his ear. He felt the initial sharp, painful press against his anus.

Then everything that had coiled up within him exploded. He heard Racine yell in shock and suddenly the pressure on his arms and back was gone. Racine’s men were slammed into the sides of the alley and Racine a good three feet away his impact denting the garbage cans. He stood, his legs shaking and weak as he stared at his hands, a blue aura surrounding him.

“What the fuck…” hissed Racine as he stood up. “What the fuck are you?”

Then everything turned into a Technicolor sea of static as the blood and adrenaline rushed to his head and he passed out.


	5. The Tenth Street Reds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Nameless Child finds a place to belong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alas I have fallen into the same long update spell that I am usually annoyed with other fanfic authors for. Updates will be sporadic until I work up the nerve to post another chapter. Leave a review if you like it.

“Tell me Racine, what exactly about this scrawny pup is so special that you had to bring him here? You know I don’t share your tastes.”

The voiced were muffled, like someone had stuffed his ears full of cotton and had stuck him under water. A wave of nausea made him want to return to the darkness but the pain in his head won out and forced him to crack his eyes open.

Or try too, one felt like it had swollen closed and the other watered as light was shone into his iris. The urge to vomit came back strong and he gulped against the bile that rose to the back of his throat. The light moved away, thankfully and was replaced by a cold press against his eye and nose.

“I’m tellin’ ya this brat is some sort of biotic. He was able to push me and my boys back like it was nothing and he was glowing blue like those Asari bitches in the vids.” Racine said. “I have sources sayin’ that most of the biotics are going to that Jump Zero place to be trained by the government. We found one here and the Reds could use somethin' like this. Believe me Madigan, the brat’s a genuine freak but at least he’d be our freak.”

“Hm, Shepard…the kid awake.” the other man, Madigan asked.

“Yes, his eye is swollen shut and his nose is broken I had to set it. He might be having a migraine but I can’t be sure. Did you have to punch the kind's shit in Racine? From what I heard, he was already unconscious after he threw you.”

“Tch! Brat’s fuckin’ lucky I held back or a migraine would be the least of his worries. I had to makes sure that runt got his.” Racine muttered bitterly. Carefully, the boy opened one eye and looked at the three people in the room with him. Racine stood off to one side, holding his bandaged ribs with a scowl. A man in a suit stared at him as if he was an interesting picture. The other man Shepard pressed a cold compress to his eye.

“Go to sleep kid, the swelling will go down eventually.” Shepard said, his voice soothing.

“Well? What do you think?” Racine spoke again.

“Tell me boy, did you really break Racine’s ribs?” Madigan asked.

“Yeah...” The boy rasped his voice horse and terrible. “He hit a dumpster then I blacked out.”

“Hm. I guess I’ll see for myself then.” Madigan said, “I’ll take the kid into consideration Racine. He’ll have to prove himself to me before he goes before The Reds.”

The boy falls asleep, knowing that joining The Tenth Street Reds would be the best thing to happen to him and vowing to earn his place.


End file.
